


The Home and Brew

by RoxieFlash



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Coffee Shops, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:26:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxieFlash/pseuds/RoxieFlash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is having a bad day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Home and Brew

Even though it's only mid-afternoon, it's dark as night outside when Rose leaves the kitchen to make her half-hourly rounds, wiping down tables and filling up the condiment bar with stir sticks and Splenda. Angry grey clouds are rolling in from the west, bringing a halting grey drizzle with it. Across town, Rose has heard, it's even worse - entire blocks without power, a whole office building and the courthouse, too, suffering from not only driving rain but hail and high winds. Somewhere, a tree has fallen across a power line, and it has brought the tiny town of Cross Plains to a screeching halt.

She knows this because all the occupants of what she thinks of as Across Town are currently piling into the The Home and Brew to warm themselves up.

All of them.

It's been one of those days. She'd spent the morning making drinks for their early risers and managed all right for a while, until, quite by accident, what was meant to be a drink made of soy milk ended up dairy, and she'd spent an entire fifteen minutes being lectured first by the angry customer and then again by her manager, just in case it hadn't sunk in the first time that she'd given him a drink that could have made him sick.

As he sniffed haughtily and said he wouldn't be back, she'd - rather ungraciously, though she wasn't a bit sorry - thought good riddance.

Not long after she'd been relegated to the kitchen to wash dishes. She's been in here for the past two hours, suds up to her elbows as she rinses dirty plates and milk pitchers and grumps angrily to herself and slams the dishes into the big, hot sink full of sanitizer with just a little more force than necessary.

She's been back here so long that it gives her a bit of a start when one of her co-workers pushes the door open, looking half-distressed, half amused.

"Rosie, your bloke's up front. Better hop to, I think he's trying to give Kevin an aneurysm."

She frowns, wipes the suds from her hands, and pushes the door open. It's on the tip of her tongue to tell Jimmy Stone to get gone, he ain't her bloke no matter how hard he wants it so, but her tongue freezes, and, despite herself, despite everything, she feels her mouth break open into a wide smile.

It isn't Jimmy Stone.

Her boss is at the bar, politely arguing with the man across the counter. He's tall, with overlarge ears and a very strong nose, with his hands tucked underneath his arms. He's very clever and a bit mad and never seems tonot be wearing that battered leather jacket, and he's Rose's absolute favorite customer. He's been coming here a year, and, despite assurances from the rest of the staff, no-one at the store has ever made a drink for him but Rose. He won't have it.

"I'll be happy to make your drink for you, sir," says her manager.

"No offense," he returns with a grin. Rose quickly scribbles "The Doctor" on a paper cup as she makes her way to the front. He winks. "Want only the best, me."

 


End file.
